Maggie speaks "Why Mythology is Still Relevant"

Maggie spoke today about "Why Mythology is Still Relevant." We think of Mythology as the pantheon of ancient superheroes of Greek or Roman or Norse tradition. Its good that we have those myths because they teach us about the history, culture, manners and even the economics of those societies.

Much of what we know about ancient Greek culture comes from the stories that we have from them that present them selves as myths. Paris is self centered and greedy. Odysseys is brave and wise. Achilles is prideful and even arrogant. Those characters meet bad ends or are rewarded according to how the Greeks wanted to teach each other about the traits that they admired or traits that they dishonored. They also teach us a bit about their belief system... you can bargain with divinity and maybe get a better deal than you would have otherwise gotten in your fate.

So we here in twenty-first century America still make virtual deities out of our heroes. We are in awe in their presence. We write books and create movies to tell their stories (and perhaps edit out the parts we would prefer to edit out.) It gives us a chance to illustrate our values and teach our children about the traits we hold up as positive. Mythology is still with us.